Here’s an update from Thanksgiving until present. Thanksgiving was absolutely amazing for us this year. We dined with 20 of our closest Expat friends. Everyone made their own dish. There was so much good AMERICAN food. 2 big turkeys as well! I ate my full first plate in about 1 minute. It was so good. I had a total of 3 ½ plates. The food by far was the highlight, but the fun and fellowship was more than worth it as well. All in all, I had a lot of be thankful for this year.
We had another one of those Eid Holidays this year along with UAE National Day, so there was basically a nice 10 day break for us. After Thanksgiving, we rested on that Friday and Saturday. I was very excited that this country has no such thing as Black Friday. I personally think it is moronic for people to camp out in front of a Walmart or get up at 3am to get a good deal at Best Buy. Christmas has become was too materialistic. No one even celebrates the birth of CHRIST anymore. Getting away from my rant, and back to my blog… we decided to spend a few days in Dubai for part of our break. Alanna found us a nice hotel – The Arabian Courtyard. Her main reason for choosing it? Babysitting. Yes, they came to our room and watched little Logan for us so we could have a few romantic dates.
So we drove up early on Sunday afternoon. The drive was pleasant enough. People basically drive as fast as they want on the interstates here, slowing down only when they see Radar Cameras. That’s the only was you get a ticket. There are no actual police patrolling anywhere. You have to call them if you need to see them. We could have taken a bus for cheap there but I just knew I’d have no trouble driving so I insisted. As we got within about 20 minutes of
downtown, you could already see the Burj Dubai rising twice as high as any other building in the skyline. It is now the largest building in the world. What an amazing sight it was indeed. So we got to town and found our way to where I thought the general location of our hotel was. Well then we drove around in circles for 20 minutes and couldn’t find the hotel. We never really got lost, just couldn’t find the dang place. Finally, with Logan crying and my wife begging, we pulled over. Alanna got in a taxi and we followed it to the hotel, about 2 minutes away. We kept taking a right when we should have went left. We would have never found it though without the taxi. We got free valet parking and left the car there until we checked out.
After getting checked in at the hotel, we dropped off our bags, fed Logan, then went outside to explore. Using the famous Angie Triplett Method of Vacationing, we made ourselves a detailed itinerary. Our first stop was the Dubai Museum, which happened to be directly across the street from the hotel. It was a nice place. It basically gave the history of old Dubai and how things were back in the day. I enjoy anything historical so it was a neat time. After that we walked around a little more, taking in the Grand Mosque, stopping at a store that was named after Carolina, and then we were hounded to buy fake watches, fake purses, etc, etc, etc. We went back to the hotel to freshen up for our first well deserved date. The babysitter arrived on time and we decided to do something simple for date night # 1. We stayed in the hotel and went to a restaurant there, the Sherlock Holmes Pub. I’m a big fan of the man myself, although this place only took the name, not much else. I had a steak for the first time since coming to the UAE. It was tasty and my tummy was satisfied. We even got back a little early to the room just cause we missed little Lolo so much.
Day 2 started early for us. On the Angie Triplett itinerary was the Dubai Aquarium, Dubai Mall and the Atlantis Hotel, which is on the Palm Island. Google it. Go to google and type in Palm Island Dubai. Its way cool. The Aquarium was
nice. They had some big sharks in the walkthrough tunnel, some seals and even penguins. After the Aquarium, which was in the mall, we walked around it for awhile. HUGE mall. Three stories of store after store after store. The food court was as big as a typical Walmart. We found Taco Bell there (we hadn’t seen one in the country yet). Taco Bell is just as cheap here as it is in the States. Next, we hopped a bus and headed out to the Palm Island to visit the Atlantis Hotel. As we rushed to get off the bus, we left the video camera on it. After 15 minutes of panicking, we got in touch with the bus people and they said the driver would have it for us we he came back to pick us up. Problem solved. The Atlantis was spectacular. There was a Porsche, two Lamborghinis, a Ferrari and a Roles-Royce parked outside. We toured the inside, which was packed with people, then went outside and took some pictures along the public beach walkway. The Atlantis, as it should, as its own private beach that we couldn’t go see. The bus showed up, with our camera and we hopped back on it and went back to the mall. This just saved us some taxi fares because the bus was free.
We then headed back to the hotel, the babysitter took Logan and we walked down to the old part of Dubai, along the Dubai Creek. We hopped on an abra, which is a water taxi. It’s a wooden motorboat which fits about 20 people on it and takes you to the other side of the river. It was a neat, cultural experience, especially at night. On the other side of the creek is the Old Souk. Its basically a bunch of local merchants crammed into many different alleys. We didn’t really by anything, but it was neat to walk up and down the streets. We couldn’t find anything to eat on that side of the river, so we hopped back on the abra, oh… which cost 1dhs (33 cents) by the way, and headed back in the direction towards our hotel. We found a little pizza place. It was an Italian Pizza place, in the UAE, and we were served by the Asian lady who seemed to be the manager. We ate outside. The pizza was good and we were happy. We headed back, Alanna bought her a cheap fake designer purse, then called it a night.
On our final day, we got up early and headed down to the public beach. Other than the literally ton of cigarette butts
all over the sand, the beach was nice. Logan got his first ocean experience and we took lots of pictures. We stayed there about 2 hours (that’s about as long as Logan could take), then headed back to the hotel, checked out and came back to Al Ain. I really want to go back to Dubai a few more times at least. There is just so much to see and do there!
The rest of this week we spent relaxing and shopping. We took Logan to the doctor tonight for a scheduled round of shots. What a nightmare. I don’t like hospitals in the first place, and the ones here are a pain in the butt. We went in two days ago and made Logan’s appointment with a doctor we heard good things about. We set an appointment for 7pm. Yeah, they do things late here. We get to the hospital tonight and reception tells us that our doctor is on vacation. No one bothered to tell us that before. He would be gone for a month. We decided, since we were there, to see another doctor. We got to the pediatrics area and found out that not only were we not told about our doctor being on vacation, that they also moved our appointment from 7pm to 8:15pm. We pitched a small fit and the nurse told us she’d get us in next. We didn’t wait too long and they brought us in. The lady doctor was nice enough. We went over what shots we would need and then she examined Logan. She did a pretty thorough examination, except for the small fact that she didn’t bother to take his diaper off. So I hope his penis is ok. She then told us to go with the nurse to the cashier. Apparently we had to pay before we got the shots. So we went to the cashier, paid, and then he told us to go to the pharmacy outside and get the vaccines for the shots. What? We had to go get the stuff? They didn’t have it with the doctor? Well we went outside and into the pharmacy, got the shots, then brought them back. We had to wait for the doctor again, then went back inside. Of course, the nurse forgot to add one of the shots to our bill, so we didn’t get it at the pharmacy. So I got the paperwork, waited in line at the cashier and pharmacy again and finally got back, leaving Alanna to watch little Logan take his shots like a champ. She said he only cried when the doc stuck him and by the time I got back he was smiling. Guess he takes after his Daddy?
Alanna goes back to work tomorrow. She’s not very happy about that. I go back to taking care of the little man and playing video games. Right now… I’m watching through the internet UK beating up on UNC. Boo.
